Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 7

Research Paper Example All these are geared towards promoting food security. However, genetically modified foods have raised great debate in the recent past over their impact on human health. The two main areas of concern are risk to human health and risk to the environment. This paper seeks to look at the health benefits of genetically modified foods and also the disadvantages of these foods. Pathogens, herbivorous insects, and parasites have significantly reduced crop yields all over the world. Given the fact that the population is increasing, traditional crops cannot sustain the world population because of the above threats. GM crops have been introduced to help abate this problem. Examples of crops grown in this case are virus resistant genetically modified papaya and insect resistant crops having Bacillus thuringiensis gene. This has been successful in the United States; insect resistant GM maize is grown on an area of about 10.6 million hectares and represents 35 percent of all the maize grown in the country. The resistance has also been enhanced to include bacterial and fungal pathogens. With reduction in crop loss due to pathogens, insects and parasites, more yields can be achieved and this can reduce malnutrition (Key, Ma and Drake 292). Another issue that has caused reduction in the crop yields is abiotic stress which includes low or high temperatures, drought, and salinity. It is projected that in the coming years these losses will increase due decline in water resources and desertification. Salinity and drought are expected to increase salinization of arable lands. This calls for adoption of new technology that will ensure there is crop survival. There have been attempts to produce abiotic stress resistant genetically modified foods. However, there has been no break through yet and the research is still at laboratory level. In